Call me Grandpa....

So tonight I'm watching TV, and a commercial one of those retrospective music compilations comes on. You know... the type of commercial where they scroll song titles, and play every third or fourth one? It was my generation's music. This compilation called Buzz Ballads.

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And I was watching Princess Bride with Sophia saturday night. (more on that in a bit) Do you realize that next year, that movie will be 20 FUCKING YEARS OLD.

GAAAAA!!!!

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So I spend saturday with Sophia. I pick her up and take her to OIP&T and give her the grand tour. Or at least as grand a tour as you can give in such a teensy-weensy itty-bitty tiny little facility. Printed out and matted on museum quality ragboard three images to give to L&V. Framed them tonight, and they're fabulous.

...but I digress.

So then we go to the horse auction and she teaches me all the different colorations and breeds that are there. I can now tell a Paint from a Chestnut from a Sorrel. And how to tell a stallion from a gelding. The two foot boner every time a mare walks by is a good indicator, but I'm talking about behavior-wise. It was great. It was in this big dirt-floor barn with bleachers and horse stalls, and this Stetson-wearing auctioneer doing his machine gun rapid fire nearly indiscernablea babble
"Starting at fifty! Babba-dee babba-da babba-dee babba-da! Do I have fifty five? Fifty-fi-fifty-fi-fifty-fi-fifty-fi-fifty-fi-fifty-fi- babba-dee-babba-da-babba-dee-babba-da" routine with this guy pointing and shouting "Hup! Hup! Hup!" every time somebody bid.

I joked to Sophia that I'd love to see this guy auction off a multi-million dollar Van Gogh painting at Sotheby's or Christie's. She laughed.

There was a horse in a stall there that honestly was criminally neglected. Mangey and rough looking, and nothing but skin and fucking bones. She attracted a huge aghast crowd at her stall. Sophia and I left after a few hours, but her mom and sister stayed for the horse section of the auction (the afternoon is all tack, which is saddles and harnesses and stuff). From what I nderstand, somebody approached the person who brought that poor horse to sell and basically said something along the lines of "Either you GIVE that horse to me right now, or I'm calling the authorities and pressing charges, and having you and your farm inspected and shut down."

Horse people won't stand for that kind of treatment. Right after we left, I told Sophie that I hoped somebody would rip that owner a new asshole. Turns out somebody did.

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I'm not going to use the L-word with Sophia. Saturday night was the first night where I finally dropped the drawbridge to my heart and let her across the moat I've built up in self-defense. We're still essentially strangers who've really grown fond of one another, and I don't believe in love at first sight. BUT! I do believe two people meeting, and at first sight sensing the immediate diggage and acknowledging the potential that this person beats the odds and could be somebody to fall in love with in the future. That's Sophie. She's a keeper.

This is really inconvenient, because I like her in a way I don't want to like somebody right now. I like her in the long term sense. I wanted to run around and be a slut for a while, but I think it's been proven all too well that:

A) The whole party/slut/college lifestyle just didn't present itself to me.
B) Although I wonder (and probably never will know) what it would've been like, my gut tells me I'd've been completely miserable living it.
C) I simply don't function well as a single person.
D) Sophie is a keeper. Hang onto her for dear life.

I could gush about her for hours. I'm falling so hard for her, and unlike Dark Haired Girl, in whom I invested energy based on a false hope, I look at Sophie and feel pure uninhibited hope for the future.